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The eluvians took them to a new location—some kind of castle built high on a sea cliff. It almost felt like home to Ren, except for the smashed eluvians everywhere she looked.

"What is this, an eluvian graveyard?" Dorian asked, intrigued. He moved closer to one of the mirrors, bending to study it more closely.

Cassandra frowned. "Where did the Qunari get all these? How long have they been studying eluvians?"

"I wasn't aware that they were," the Iron Bull said. He sighed, hating this. He used to be the guy who knew things, and now he was the guy who knew fuck-all. It sucked.

"Varric told me his friend Merrill, in Kirkwall, had a broken one she'd tried for years to fix. If the Dalish can't get their hands on a working eluvian, how in Thedas did the Qunari?" Morvoren asked. She picked up a broken shard, carefully, then remembered she only had one hand and it would be awkward to turn it over and study it, so she put it back down again, shoving her right hand in her pocket where she wouldn't have to think about it. The Iron Bull's heart went out to her, wishing he could fix it for her—but only time could do that, and time was one thing he didn't know if he could give her. She cleared her throat. "The sooner we stop this invasion plan, the better."

"Agreed," Cassandra said, nodding firmly and turning her back on the broken piles of glass.

As they made their way toward the main structure, the Iron Bull sighed again. "I wish I could say I'm surprised the Viddasala wants to murder everyone, but it makes sense. We tell stories about how corrupt the South is. Who wouldn't want to kill the evil nobles and save the people?"

No one answered him, not that he had expected them to. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had let the Inquisition down by allowing himself to be declared Tal-Vashoth and cut off from his sources of information—but if he hadn't, the Chargers would be dead right now, and he was sure something would have happened to tear him away from his kadan.

They found their way inside the building, which appeared deserted. It was a beautiful castle, and the Iron Bull wondered where it was. Did it exist in the world, or was this some enchantment inside the eluvians? The whole thing was too confusing for him.

Meanwhile, Dorian was poking his head inside every room they passed. He stopped at one, pushing his head further in. "What's this?" They heard him moving things around and followed him inside. The room was filled with scrolls and bits and pieces of what looked like junk to the Iron Bull. Dorian picked up a scroll, unrolled it, and frowned at it. "This is gibberish to me—all in Qunari—but it looks as though they've been collecting and cataloging artifacts." He looked around him, frowning thoughtfully. "But why?"

"How many ruins must they have discovered to have unearthed so many things?" Cassandra asked, picking up a pottery shard. "This one is Nevarran, very old. From a royal crypt, unless I miss my guess."

"What do they want with all these things?" Morvoren asked. She had her hand shoved in her pocket again, which the Iron Bull was coming to recognize as a sign that the fact that she had only one was bothering her.

"They don't know the shape of the locks, but they know how to look for the key," Cole said.

"Oh!" Dorian looked at him, intrigued. "You're saying these artifacts open the mirrors?"

Morvoren's face brightened with memory. "That's right. Morrigan told me the key could be anything—including knowledge."

"So they're stockpiling anything they think might be useful in that capacity. Makes sense. That's how they opened so many—trial and error." The Iron Bull looked around him, impressed as he so often was by the way his people got things done—often through just this kind of sheer stubbornness and infinite patience. He ran his hand over a dragon skull lurking in the corner of the room. "This would make a wicked armchair, though. You think we could take it home with us, kadan?" He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

As he had hoped she would, she snorted and said, "I think it would be easier to kill another dragon ourselves."

He grinned at her, hoping she couldn't see how happy he was that she was thinking so positively ahead, and said, "I'm going to hold you to that."

"We have to get out of here first," she reminded him.

Even as she spoke, a cry resounded through the building. A very familiar cry, one the two of them had heard several times flying above them.

Dorian closed his eyes and groaned quietly. "Even the Qunari aren't that literal, are they?"

Cassandra shook her head. "Dragon's breath. We ought to have guessed."

"That's not a healthy dragon," the Iron Bull said. "You hear that? So shaky and … broken?"

Morvoren nodded. "Something's wrong with it. A crippled dragon," she said softly, pulling her right hand out of her pocket and looking at it. "Literal indeed." She lifted her head and met his eye. "An ataashi needs our help."

"Let's go."

Of course all the Qunari in the castle were congregated near the dragon, which was, indeed, sickly. It had clearly been chained up here for a long time, and appeared to have been fed something that made it look an awful lot like Morvoren's lost Anchor.

One of the Qunari heard them coming and sounded the alarm, and from a door high up in the wall the Viddasala emerged, calling for everyone within hearing to come to her aid and kill the Inquisitor. The Iron Bull briefly considered pointing out that his kadan was technically not the Inquisitor, but the Viddasala lacked the whimsy necessary for that tactic to have any effect whatsoever. Even pointing out that the Anchor had been removed was unlikely to change things at this juncture.

And they were coming, in orderly rows, faces set toward the Inquisition party, ready to attack.

Incredibly, unbelievably, the Viddasala looked at him. "Hissrad, please! Now! Vinek kathas."

The call to attack. To attack his friends, his lover, his very heart. Now, after everything that had gone before. "Are you out of your mind? Now? After all this time? Not a fucking chance." He stepped ostentatiously in front of his kadan, sending the message loud and clear. "You want her, you come through me."

The Viddasala looked genuinely grieved, as though somehow she had counted on his continued loyalty to the Qun all this time. "If those are your terms, I have no choice but to accept." She looked at the rows of Qunari. "Kill the Inquisitor, and everyone who stands with her."

And she was gone through the door.

The Qunari were advancing slowly, one step at a time, a tactic used to make them seem indomitable and inevitable. Most of the time it scared the shit out of their opponents. For now, the Iron Bull was grateful for the brief moment's respite.

Morvoren put her hand on his arm, looking up at him questioningly, and Dorian said, "You all right?"

He nodded. "The Iron Bull is just fine. Drinks on me when this is over—probably a lot 'em." Pulling his kadan close, he kissed her, hard. "I choose you. Every day."

"I know. I choose you, too."

"You ready for this?" He looked at her searchingly, wanting to know she was confident enough to take on the oncoming rows of his people.

Her blue eyes were wide and scared and not as sure as he would have liked, but she squared her shoulders and nodded. "If you're with me."

"Always," he promised.

"Then let's do this."

Together, they turned to face his people.

Their rhythm was a little off, not quite as smooth as usual, Morvoren clearly struggling to fight one-handed, but it was better than he had anticipated. Once she wasn't thinking about it, she managed to fight almost normally, her muscles falling into their habitual patterns. And with Cassandra and Cole and Dorian with them, fighting as the unit they had been for so long, it took remarkably little time to get through some of the Qunari's best men. If anyone had told him on Seheron that one day he would be fighting his own people with a Vint, a Nevarran princess, a half-spirit in a dead kid's body, and a red-haired former noblewoman of the South, and that they would win, he would have laughed in their faces.

But today that happened, and at last they came through to the room where the chained dragon roared weakly at them, her venom dribbling from her mouth. "Boss, we fighting this dragon or what?" he asked.

Morvoren looked at the dragon sorrowfully. "There's no honor in this. Her captors have already mutilated her. It seems needlessly cruel to kill her."

"Isn't it just as cruel to let her go, damaged as she is?" Cassandra asked.

Morvoren's shoulders stiffened, and the Iron Bull glared at the Seeker, who had clearly not picked up on the way the Inquisitor was identifying with the tortured, damaged dragon.

"Of course, she can heal, given the chance," Cassandra said hastily.

Any other time, Morvoren would have seen through the Seeker's lame response immediately, but now she was distracted, walking toward the dragon with her hand out. "Let's get that gate open," she said softly. But it was an order, and the others jumped to carry it out, finding the mechanism to open the gates.

The dragon turned, and the Iron Bull could almost see bliss on her face when the gates opened and she felt fresh air again.

He raised his blade, bringing it down on the weakest part of the chain that held the dragon's leg, feeling the metal split beneath his strike. The dragon craned its neck to look down at the chain, then up at him. Then she looked back outside, flapped her wings experimentally, and took off.

"There she goes."

"There goes our dragon," Morvoren said softly.

He put his arm around her shoulders. "We're going to need a bigger cabin if you want to bring her home."

She chuckled. "I don't think she'd feel very comfortable after you made a chair out of her cousin's skull."

"Good point."

"If you two are done having your moment, can we discuss the next step in the plan?" Dorian asked.

"We go after the Viddasala," Morvoren said simply. "And we don't stop until she's dead."

"You think killing the Viddasala will neutralize the Qunari threat?" Cassandra asked.

The Iron Bull nodded. "Taken in conjunction with destroying the lyrium mine and catching the gaatlok barrels before they could carry out the plan, it'll set things back, at the very least."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Dorian asked.

They all looked at the Inquisitor.

"Nothing," she said decisively. "We're ready."